Fluidized bed reactors are used in a number of industrial chemical processes, such as hydrocarbon dehydrogenation, fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) and methanol to olefins (MTO).
In processes for hydrocarbon dehydrogenation to produce olefins, the art has taught that regenerated catalyst must be stripped to minimize oxygen in the regenerated catalyst stream prior to injection into the dehydrogenation reactor. For example, the regenerated catalyst stream may be stripped with a nitrogen stream.
The inclusion of an oxygen stripper increases the capital investment of a hydrocarbon dehydrogenation process, increases the operating cost due to nitrogen consumption and increases the complexity of unit operation. Therefore, one might consider eliminating the unit operation. This gives rise to the problem of oxygen being transferred to the dehydrogenation reactor and degrading valuable feedstock to less valuable products.
Therefore, a process for minimizing the oxygen amount arriving in the fluidized bed reactor along with the regenerated catalyst would be useful.